The Brazilian Congressional Commission of Inquiry will ask for President Jair Bolsonaro to be indicted “for mass murder” for intentionally letting the coronavirus spread killing hundreds of thousands of people. A decision that he would have taken in order not to compromise the Brazilian economy by focusing on achieving herd immunity. He writes it on New York Times anticipating the report that will be officially released tomorrow, Wednesday 20 October.
The accusations – claims the American daily – concern a total of 69 people including three children of the president “numerous current and former government officials”. Bolsonaro would be held responsible for the deaths of over 300,000 Brazilians: “Many of these deaths were preventable – said Senator Renan Calheiros, the lead author of the report – I am personally convinced that he is responsible for the escalation of the massacre”.
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Among the accusations made against the president is that he promoted “drugs with untested efficacy such as hydroxychloroquine” causing a delay of months in the start of the vaccination campaign. Today there will be the final report. The Senate should then return to vote in a new session scheduled for the 26th. Should it be approved by the majority of the senators, the text will be sent to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which has the exclusive task of conducting the investigation of the case, since it is President of the Republic. But the complexity of the dossier could push the dossier also to anti-bodies such as the Federal Police and the tax agency but also the International Criminal Court for the crime of genocide and crimes against humanity.
According to the newspaper “G1” Bolsonaro could be charged with eleven counts based on the work of the Commission of Inquiry. The most serious is having caused or created the conditions to spread a pandemic, from 4 to 15 years in prison in the case of “proven intentionality”, which can be raised to 30 if there are deaths.
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The special law of 1956 also introduced the crime of genocide of indigenous people, which punishes those who promote actions to “intentionally subject a group to conditions of life” that could lead to physical food, total or partial “, with the intention of exterminating a specific social group In the concrete case of indigenous people, who some claim to have been harmed more than others by health policies, the penalty can be up to 15 years.
The same policies have been evoked as possible causes of crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute. Non-statutory offenses that should be paid for with sentences of up to 30 years in prison. The work of the Commission had opened in the Senate on 4 May.
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